Community Voice: TheBus Should Be Free

Public transportation is stuck in this loop of "People don't use it because its expensive, dirty, and unreliable", and the solution to that is make it affordable, clean, and reliable.

Unfortunately, to do that, it costs money.

I actually think free ridership could be a great first step in moving towards a more public transportation oriented infrastructure, but needs to be seen as part of a long term plan investing in that infrastructure. Get people riding the bus and out of their cars to develop a culture more accepting of the idea, update infrastructure and services to be reliable, clean and efficient, and down the line gradually reintroduce fares to wean the system off public funding so it can start to pay for itself.

However, the costs to actually provide the services needed to actually get people to ride it en masse and have any sort of meaningful impact are going to be an incredibly tough pill for people to swallow.

But of course, they probably should have tried something like this before the Rail, so I don't really see this gaining any traction.

/r/Hawaii Thread Link - civilbeat.org